]]>https://www.libertariannews.org/2018/01/08/factory-farms-impact-on-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-mrsa-mad-cows-disease-and-our-food-supply/feed/0714401Navcoin Is The Best Cryptocurrency So Far; But What About Inflation?https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/12/26/navcoin-is-the-best-cryptocurrency-so-far-but-what-about-inflation/
https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/12/26/navcoin-is-the-best-cryptocurrency-so-far-but-what-about-inflation/#commentsWed, 27 Dec 2017 04:20:46 +0000https://www.libertariannews.org/?p=700296As a staunch advocate of the Austrian School, I have a long track record of denouncing inflation in all it’s various manifestations. I truly believe that when the money supply is inflated through mechanisms like fractional reserve banking, you ultimately get distortions in the structure of production; there’s just no way around it. Thus, it would be outrageous for me to support a currency that has built-in unlimited inflation, right?

Well… obviously I’m writing this article, so the answer to that question is probably going to surprise you. Before we get into Navcoin, I’m going to discuss a bit about the Austrian stance on inflation and propose some hypothetical situations.

Let’s say we have a system where every single bank account in existence inflates at the same arbitrary rate over time, like 5% a year. In such a situation, does inflation matter?

According to Austrian theory, I would argue that the answer to that question is NO. This is because Austrian theory only describes inflation as being bad when it distorts the structure of production. For a great primer on this, see this video by Prof. Rodger Garrison where he covers this subject in great detail.

If all accounts inflate equally, then there can be no distortion in the structure of production. In our scenario, money is not being pumped through credit markets, rather it’s being evenly added to all accounts. What makes fractional reserve banking so bad is that those who get the new money first get the most benefit. This principle is also why counterfeiting is so destructive.

Consider that if everyone was given 5% annual growth of their bank accounts and wages under a 100% reserve system, then all loans would automatically calculate that into the known future value of money. There would be no distortion in the structure of production because no one group of people would get access to the new money first, and everyone would know ahead of time what the growth of the money supply would be.

The supply curve of loanable funds would shift rightward, but this would be associated with a corresponding increase in global savings accounts, and a corresponding decrease in value that exactly offsets the rightward supply shift of the loanable funds market. It’s a net neutral effect. This situation is only possible with cryptocurrency accounts. It wasn’t even feasible to contemplate such a scenario prior to the invention of cryptocurrency.

Further, consider that under a 100% reserve gold standard, there is also no theoretical limit to inflation. As more gold is mined, more money is added to the system. Also consider that, under a gold standard, deflationary pressures will drive the price of gold up, which will further divert resources into needlessly mining ever more gold. We don’t need more gold, but that’s what we will get under a gold standard – ever more gold that will do nothing but sit as bricks in bank vaults for accounting purposes.

This same issue arises with all other “proof of work” cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. As the value of bitcoin goes up, the incentive to “mine” the coins also goes up proportionately. At first glance this sounds like a good thing, but the problem is that this ultimately causes a mining arms race.

The resources necessary to mine bitcoins are nearly as outrageous as the resources required to mine real gold! To quote Futurism, “According to a research conducted by a U.K.-based energy comparison tariff service called PowerCompare, the average electricity used to mine bitcoin this year has surpassed the annual energy usage of some 159 countries.” In my opinion, this is an exorbitant and needless amount of power to run what ultimately amounts to a simple accounting system. There has got to be a better way.

Navcoin uses a proof of stake model that requires orders of magnitude less power to operate than a proof of work model. Under a proof of stake model, the more coins a person has, the more mining power they hold, but only if they hold the coins in a full node wallet. Thus, a suitable reward (4% annual on balance) must be offered to all holders of Navcoin that encourages them to hold their coins in a full node wallet client.

If they hold their coins in a web wallet or a lightweight wallet that doesn’t run a full node, they don’t get the benefit of the 4% inflation, and the network loses out on their transaction processing power. This fundamental reward system is what encourages all Navcoin holders to keep their currency in a full node client which further ensures the network’s integrity and speedy processing of transactions.

Since it can be assumed that the vast majority of people will want to keep their Navcoin in a full node wallet that offers the benefits of inflation, the inflation that’s hard coded into the system really doesn’t impact the structure of production much at all. In my opinion, the benefits of such an inflationary system outweigh the negatives. Further, anyone who advocates for a gold standard has no room to argue since a gold standard is just as inflationary and a thousand times more wasteful.

I’ve seen other coins that operate in almost exactly the same way Navcoin does, but using a proof of work model instead of proof of stake, claiming that proof of stake benefits people with large holdings more than those with small holdings. This claim is provably false with grade school math. It should be obvious that increasing a small holding by an equal percentage as a large holding yields exactly same disparity in purchasing power. I wouldn’t hold a coin where the developers promoting it are so stupid that they can’t even understand that concept *cough* Verge *cough*.

Besides using orders of magnitude less power to operate, Navcoin also offers built in private transactions that are encrypted with proven RSA cryptography. RSA cryptography has been around for decades and has proven itself to be effective against every known attack. Other privacy coins on the market are using much less proven methods of obfuscation. The cryptocurrency Monero actually suffered a critical attack because of its unproven cryptographic method that ended up exposing all transactions on the blockchain before a fix was implemented.

I believe that in 2018 people will begin migrating toward more privacy oriented coins. The more the state regulates and cracks down on cryptocurrencies, the more people will be incentivized to use privacy coins just out of a fear of making a general accounting error. Coins must be fungible for a currency to be of any value. Bitcoin is perhaps one of the least fungible of all the coins on the market right now.

Another advantage of the Navcoin proof of stake system is that transaction fees are extremely low and transaction confirmation times are extremely fast, which makes micropayments with Navcoin feasible. I believe this is also something necessary for a currency to be viable. Bitcoin has lost 50% of its market share recently almost entirely due to its outrageous transaction fees and processing times. Bitcoin, in its present state, cannot be used for micropayments.

Navcoin is built upon the latest branch of Bitcoin, so all the new sidechain improvements that are coming to the Bitcoin network will automatically be adopted by the Navcoin network. Further, the Navcoin network has been around for quite a while now and has proven itself to be resilient and effective. Projects that are in the works include Polymorph technology, cold staking and the possibility of Smart Contracts and Dapps.

The current privacy coin competitors are all running proof of work models and using cryptographic methods that haven’t been time tested. This leaves NAV with lower transaction fees, faster transaction times, no worries about block rewards running out causing a spike in fees or a decline in mining, and a more proven method of obfuscation. In my opinion, NAV is simply better than all of them. Based on the fundamental features of NAV, I think the coin is grossly undervalued at the present moment.

So let’s summarize the differences between NAV and Bitcoin:

No special equipment is needed to mine NAV, all holders can earn 5% (soon to be 4%) simply by keeping their NAV in a full node wallet, rather than having to invest in mining hardware.

NAV doesn’t have a max coin cap like BTC does; however, due to the way transactions are validated, it will never have a problem having to pay miners huge transaction fees to make up for the eventual lack of reward coins.

The fixed growth of NAV is evenly distributed between all full node wallets, rather than hardware miners as in the BTC network, with the exception of 1% that will be diverted to a community development fund (this was voted on, due to no pre-mining taking place). This will not lead to distortions in NAV lending market rates or boom-bust cycles.

The NAV network requires orders of magnitude less power to operate compared to all other proof of work coins.

NAV is perfectly suited to handle micropayments right now, which is something Bitcoin cannot do, at least in its present incarnation.

NAV can handle well over a thousand transactions per second right now, which again is orders of magnitude more than BTC can do.

NAV has a built-in optional means of sending private payments, which BTC does not have.

NAV payment systems will allow instant private anonymous payment exchange between all cryptocurrencies using NAV as a go-between.

NAV will gain benefits from all the same sidechain improvements that are coming to BTC.

I’m not aware of any coin out there right now that can claim all of these features. Navcoin solves pretty much every complaint or concern I have about Bitcoin. I’m a firm believer that NAV will come to be a dominant player in the cryptomarkets as we progress into the future.

Navcoin’s Chief Engineer, Craig MacGregor, provides us with an interview here to learn more about the coin and their plans for the future:

Full disclosure: I hold Navcoin, so take my arguments worth a grain of salt. Do your own research and I bet you come to the same conclusions I did. This is not financial advice.

]]>https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/12/26/navcoin-is-the-best-cryptocurrency-so-far-but-what-about-inflation/feed/2700296Bitcoin Cash vs. Bitcoin – Which Is Better And Why Does It Matter?https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/12/21/bitcoin-cash-vs-bitcoin-which-is-better-and-why-does-it-matter/
https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/12/21/bitcoin-cash-vs-bitcoin-which-is-better-and-why-does-it-matter/#commentsThu, 21 Dec 2017 16:16:27 +0000https://www.libertariannews.org/?p=694613It’s been a long time since I’ve made a bitcoin post. Long time readers may be aware that some of the very first posts on this blog were about bitcoin, way back in 2011. I’ve been following this currency from the start.

I declared back then that bitcoin would go on to topple nation states and supplant national currencies. This is something we are already seeing in places like Venezuela, where the state has destroyed the means of exchange. It is this function of bitcoin as a system of digital cash that concerns us today. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the current rift in the bitcoin universe between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, I’ll attempt to give you a brief overview the current problem.

Basically the blocks of transactions that miners process on the bitcoin blockchain are full. This means many transactions are left waiting to be processed by the miners. Those who really want their transactions processed quickly have to fork over large transaction fees in order to get their transactions placed at the head of the line, while those who don’t pay or pay too little are left waiting perhaps weeks for their transactions to clear.

This means that over time, bitcoin has gone from a system where there were basically no transaction fees or very low transaction fees to one that has extremely high transaction fees, even higher than credit cards. It also means that transaction times have increased from a few minutes to a few hours or even days.

Bitcoin Cash is a split from the current Bitcoin core development branch that attempts to alleviate the large fees and long transaction times by increasing the block size. This means more transactions are included in each block the miners mine. Miners on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain are able to process nearly an order of magnitude more transactions per block than Bitcoin core. This has indeed proven to be an effective means of reducing fees and transaction times.

So what’s the problem? Why hasn’t the Bitcoin core team implemented the changes made by the Bitcoin Cash team on the original Bitcoin core blockchain? What are they waiting for?

Well, here’s where the fight starts brewing. There are decent arguments to be made on each side, but I think one side does indeed have a better argument.

Bitcoin core developers are taking the position that leaving the block size small forces transaction fees to be higher, which they claim makes the chain less susceptible to spam attacks. The core people want high transaction fees and don’t see them as a fundamental problem.

High fees also ensure miners keep getting paid even when the block reward goes to zero. The block rewards are the bonus coins miners get from mining each block. These reward coins are the only way new coins enter the system. Once the system hits 21 million coins, no new reward coins will be created. So here we have a financial incentive for people that are invested in bitcoin mining to want the block size kept small.

The core developers also argue that increasing block size is a ‘simplistic’ means of addressing the problems and that a more elegant, yet vastly more complex, solution is to create side-chain transactions that act as a second layer on top of the existing block chain.

These side-chain transactions would allow bitcoin to be sent point to point instead of having to broadcast the transaction to the entire block chain. Such a proposed system is called the Lightning Network. If all of the major exchanges, wallets and merchants were to implement such a network, it would vastly increase transaction speed and reduce cost across the network.

The Cash developers argue that there’s no reason they can’t do both – dramatically increase the block size AND work on Lightning Network side-chain transactions. They point out that increasing the block size offers an immediate solution to the problems of high transaction fees and long wait times, and that this was the original plan laid out by Satoshi Nakamoto in his initial white paper on the subject to deal with these issues.

I highly recommend listening to this debate between Bitcoin core developer Jameson Lopp and Bitcoin Cash founder Roger Ver to get a better understanding of each sides position.

After listening to this debate, along with many others, and doing additional research on my own, I think Roger’s side has the better arguments. Roger actually got Jameson to admit that Bitcoin Cash was more inline with Nakamoto’s original paper than the current core branch.

Bitcoin is rapidly losing market share to alt coins, even though it’s price is rapidly rising. It’s no longer possible to use bitcoin to buy smaller every-day items because the transaction fees are often more than the item itself, and the wait times are far longer than most merchants are willing to accept for a transaction to verify.

To me, it doesn’t make sense to worry about possible issues that may arise far into the future when an immediate fix is needed in order solve imminent problems and help drive wider adoption.

I think there is a strong financial incentive for people who are heavily invested in mining or have large positions in bitcoin to prevent a block size increase, and that this is the primary reason we don’t see the core branch increasing the block size.

I also think Roger has a real point when it comes to online censorship as well. I tried to post this debate to the Reddit bitcoin boards and it was immediately banned with a nasty messianic message declaring that the original bitcoin is the ‘one true bitcoin’ and that all others are impostors or some other such nonsense. So the people on r/Bitcoin are all basically sticking their fingers in their ears when it comes to this stuff.

Jeff Berwick recently did a couple of great interviews that cover this topic in more detail. Again, I highly recommend listening to these if you want a better understanding of this important topic.

]]>https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/10/14/our-amazing-debt-cosmos-parody/feed/0622584DR MICHAEL GREGER – HOW NOT TO DIE – Part 1/2 | London Realhttps://www.libertariannews.org/2017/10/13/dr-michael-greger-how-not-to-die-part-12-london-real/
https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/10/13/dr-michael-greger-how-not-to-die-part-12-london-real/#commentsSat, 14 Oct 2017 03:40:31 +0000https://www.libertariannews.org/?p=621610Listen to Dr. Greger lay down the facts about diet on London Real – what a fantastic interview.

Mills presented at the Society for Cable & Telecoms Engineers Energy 2020 conference in Denver, CO. on September 12, 2017. The audience consisted of leading Operating Executives from across the Cable industry. Dr. Mills’ presentation is available in PDF format here.

An updated production timeline was published in the presentation. Presently, BrLP plans to have units in field testing in the 2nd half of 2018, and a commercial launch in the 2nd half of 2019. This is about a 1 year push back from the previously projected market date.

]]>https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/09/20/brilliant-light-power-september-update/feed/5597690More Defending of The Indefensible Ketogenic Diethttps://www.libertariannews.org/2017/09/16/more-defending-of-the-indefensible-ketogenic-diet/
https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/09/16/more-defending-of-the-indefensible-ketogenic-diet/#commentsSat, 16 Sep 2017 20:07:37 +0000https://www.libertariannews.org/?p=594471Michael Carrato, one of my readers, didn’t like what I had to say about his ketogenic diet regimen. Carrato writes:

Are you saying that a ketogenic diet CANNOT reverse diabetes and improve markers for CHD? Because it seems that the position of the anti-fat crowd is that keto is positively incompatible with good health, that low fat is the only pathway to curing metabolic illness. Peter Attia and Gary Taubes have challenged that dogma and produced plenty of evidence that the case against fat has NOT BEEN PROVEN sufficiently. In fact, for many people, low carb has been literally a life saver. Count me among them, BTW, so you can fully assess my bias.

Ketogenic diets may improve biomarkers for diabetes and heart disease in people who have been eating the standard American diet due to the weight loss they induce. However, some people will be genetically disposed to have worsening atherosclerosis when on a high fat diet, even with associated weight loss and improved blood lipids.

Long term prospective studies done on children who are placed on a ketogenic diet for the treatment of epilepsy show a wide range of side effects, with the most common two being gastrointestinal disturbances (40.6%) and hyperlipidemia (12.8%).

There have been no prospective studies using coronary artery calcium scans showing that a ketogenic diet can reverse heart disease the way a low fat whole food plant based diet can. If you follow a ketogenic diet, I highly recommend you get regular coronary calcium scans to ensure you don’t have progressing arterial disease.

Further, there are no long term studies that compare cardiovascular incidents between groups of vegans and people on long term ketogenic diets. While some studies have shown improvement in biomarkers for people on ketogenic diets, that doesn’t mean they are as good as a vegan diet when it comes to lowering disease risk long term.

When vegans are compared to healthy meat eaters who eat small portions of meat compared to the average population, the vegans have significantly lower rates of cancer, diabetes and heart disease; this was proven in the AHS2 study.

We also know that meat, in particular processed meat, is a known carcinogen. The current evidence for the carcinogenicity of processed meat places it in the same category of evidence as cigarettes. Animal protein is known to increase IGF-1, a cancer promoting hormone. When we compare meat eaters to vegans and vegetarians, the vegans have the lowest levels of IGF-1. We also know that cooked meats produce heterocyclic amines, which are also a known carcinogen.

So I’ve just linked several studies showing how a ketogenic diet, high in saturated fat, can impair endothelial function, stiffen the arteries, increase inflammation and promote cancer growth. I’m sure you will ignore these as minor side-effects that can be dismissed though – because what matters to you most is not being fat while getting to consume a mountain of dead bodies – right?

We know that when people are put on an ad libitum (eat as much as you want) whole food vegan diet, they showimprovements in diabetes and cardiovascular disease risk. They also show a reversal of cancer and heart disease as well. So here we have proven randomized control trial data, some of the strongest evidence available, showing us that a whole food low fat plant based diet can reverse heart disease and some forms of cancer.

So getting back to your point, the keto diet can indeed improve biomarkers for CVD and diabetes, and I’d say it’s certainly healthier than eating the standard American diet, but that doesn’t mean it is healthy.

Carrato goes on to say,

If, perhaps, Attia were saying something to the effect that “low carb is the ONLY diet for anyone”, then certainly I would be lining up against him too — though perhaps without the immature ad hominems. But he’s NOT saying that, and the low fat people ARE saying it. He is expressing reasonable opposition to what has been such a dogmatic view that it is encoded in national policy and taught to our children!

Attia is promoting a diet that will end up getting some people killed. Granted, most people would probably have their health improve by switching to a ketogenic diet, but only if they are currently eating a standard American diet. Do you think it would be reasonable for Attia to tell a whole food vegan to ditch their diet and start eating nothing but dead bodies, cruciferous vegetables and high fat foods?

The data shows us that there will always be a subset of people who will end up having a heart attack or contracting cancer strictly because they were following a meat based ketogenic diet. To me, this is not a reasonable position to advocate for when we know that a low fat whole food plant based diet can achieve better outcomes. Doctors should be promoting the best diet, not a second or third best diet.

Admittedly, I am not a libertarian, but I am quite familiar with libertarianism, and your post seems to be 180 degrees diametrically opposed to what your chosen ideology professes. Shouldn’t the evidence be presented from all sides so that people are free to use their own judgement to come to an informed decision on what is best for them?

Libertarianism deals with politics, so I’m not sure what libertarianism has to do with diet advice. I’m a libertarian because reason and evidence demonstrate free markets are the best means of improving the human condition. Likewise, I promote a low fat high carb whole food plant based diet because evidence clearly demonstrates this is the ideal diet for humans to consume.

Further, not only is the vegan diet the best for humanity in terms of health, it is undeniably better for the environment, better in terms of efficiency (more human food produced per acre), and clearly has less ethical cognitive dissonance (why not kill and eat dogs?).

]]>https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/09/16/more-defending-of-the-indefensible-ketogenic-diet/feed/2594471Large-Scale Study Proves High-Fat Diet Promotes Health and Longevity – Quackery?https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/09/12/large-scale-study-proves-high-fat-diet-promotes-health-and-longevity-quackery/
https://www.libertariannews.org/2017/09/12/large-scale-study-proves-high-fat-diet-promotes-health-and-longevity-quackery/#commentsTue, 12 Sep 2017 19:34:49 +0000https://www.libertariannews.org/?p=591965Lew Rockwell recently published an article by Dr. Joseph Mercola, who seems enamored with ketogenic diets for some reason. In the article, Mercola advocates for eating a high fat diet and regularly putting oneself into a state of ketosis. Mercola claims this will promote longevity and “boost mitochondrial function.”

It’s true that a properly done ketogenic diet can cause weight loss, and strictly because of that weight loss, it can lower markers of inflammation, improve blood lipid profiles and improve blood glucose levels… in people who were previously eating the standard American diet (ie. people who are already unhealthy and overweight.) However, that doesn’t mean it’s the ideal diet or even one that will promote long term health.

Heavy methamphetamine use will also cause weight loss, which leads to improved blood glucose levels, improved blood lipid profiles and lower markers of inflammation. Obviously that doesn’t mean we should all start doing meth. As with a meth habit, there are unhealthy side effects associated with ketogenic diets that Mercola doesn’t like to talk about too much.

There are so many misleading and flat-out incorrect statements made in Mercola’s article that it’s hard to even know where to start, so I guess I’ll just work my way down the article.

Mercola states,

The benefits of a cyclical ketogenic diet are detailed in my latest best-sellingg book, “Fat for Fuel.”3While the book was peer-reviewed by over a dozen health experts and scientists, a new large-scale international study (known as the international Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiology, or PURE, study4,5) adds further weight to the premise that high intakes of healthy fats — especially saturated fats — boost health and longevity.

Given that other major epidemiological studies have reached opposite conclusions, perhaps that’s a clue that the PURE study’s data should be interpreted with some skepticism?

The PURE study took food questionnaires from 135,335 individuals aged 35-70 from 18 countries. Three were high income countries, eleven were middle income and four were low income. Of the eleven “middle” income, ten are considered developing by the IMF, so this study is mostly based on the developing world.

The study found that total fat intake was associated with lower totalmortality risk (ie. accidents, homicides, and every other form of death put together). The study also found that higher carb intake was associated with an increased risk of total mortality. Given that this study is based mostly on the developing world, this inverse relationship is entirely explained by socio-economic factors, not diet. Fat intake is merely a proxy for socio-economic status. The more developed a nation is, the higher its fat intake becomes.

Dr. David L. Katz, Director of Yale University Prevention Research Center, writes,

“In other words, past the hype and headlines, the apparent paradoxes and puzzles, what PURE means is that: poor people with poor diets and barely enough to eat, and living in places with limited if any modern medical care- are more likely to get sick and die than people living in better circumstances. With all due respect to the researchers, and none to the promulgators of massively misleading media coverage- we knew that already.”

Here’s a great video that explains the PURE study results in detail.

Mercola goes on to state, “In related news, another recent study found a reduced-sugar diet lowered liver fat by more than 20 percent in just nine days.” What Mercola fails to mention is that the experimental diet they used swapped out sugar for starch based whole plant foods. In other words, not all carbs are created equal. Sugar is bad, whole food carbs like rice and beans are good.

Then Mercola goes on to say the AHA “has it all wrong” saying:

In June, the American Heart Association (AHA) shocked health conscious individuals around the world by declaring coconut oil dangerous and urging people to switch from butter to margarine to protect their heart health.9According to the AHA, replacing saturated fats with polyunsaturated fats such as margarine and vegetable oil might cut your heart disease risk by as much as 30 percent.

This is a remarkable statement when you consider that margarine and refined polyunsaturated vegetable oils10 have been scientifically identified as the fats that actually DO cause heart disease and other health problems, whereas saturated fats have been exonerated.

Mercola cites a Weston A. Price foundation (WAPF) article as his official source for this claim, not a scientific study. Science Based Medicine lists the WAPF as one of the worst sites on the internet. The WAPF article in question is a tour-de-force of cherry-picked misinformation, hand-waving and red herring arguments that deserves it’s own response, but here’s an article I did on a Peter Attia presentation that pretty much destroys the saturated fat = good pseudoscience. Saturated fat impairs endothelial function and is directly responsible for inflammation. Notice that he just boldly proclaims “saturated fats have been exonerated” without any reference material at all.

Mercola goes on to ask, “Why is the AHA clinging to outdated science?” Claiming that, “If people would simply eat healthy saturated fats like coconut oil and butter, there would be no need for a [cholesterol lowering] vaccine strategy.”

Perhaps he’s not aware that epidemiological studies don’t have the statistical power to show an association between saturated fat intake and serum cholesterol levels, which means only dietary change or comparative studies can tell us about the impact of saturated fat intake.

Perhaps he’s not aware of the 395 dietary change experiments that prove eating saturated fat raises serum cholesterol levels so consistently that there is actually a mathematical formula that will tell you exactly how much saturated fat you need to consume to raise your cholesterol by a given number of points.

Then he cites a Nina Teicholz article entitled, “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat, and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet:” that accuses the AHA of bias. In actuality, the AHA has beef and pork based diets featured prominently on their web site. They are heavily sponsored by the meat and dairy industry, as well the processed food industry. Frankly, I’m amazed that the AHA isn’t fully in support of a high saturated fat diet given the insane recipes they feature on their site.

Then Mercola goes on to discuss the benefits of water fasting. While I agree that water fasting can have medicinal benefits, I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who is in relatively good health! Perhaps periods of fasting wouldn’t be needed if people ate a calorically dilute plant based diet all the time. The average person can consume five pounds of potatoes a day without gaining weight! There are only 26 calories in an ounce of potatoes, for a total of 2080 calories in five pounds.

The rest of the article is a promotion for his particular brand of keto diet. Mercola says,

The MMT diet is a CYCLICAL or targeted ketogenic diet, high in healthy fats and fiber, low in net carbs with a moderate amount of protein. This targeted component is important, as long-term continuous ketosis has drawbacks that may actually undermine your health and longevity. One of the primary reasons to cycle in and out of ketosis is because the “metabolic magic” in the mitochondria actually occurs during the refeeding phase, not during the starvation phase.

Whoa! He said something half-way truthful! Well call me Sally. Let’s go over his bullet points of benefits.

-Weight loss

Yep, you can lose weight on a keto diet. But you also can lose weight on all sorts of other diets. At the end of the day it’s always calories in vs. calories out. To me, it’s much easier to eat pounds of potatoes every day and loose weight without having to starve myself into ketosis. Studies show weight loss on keto diets is no better or worse than any other diet.

-Reduced inflammation

Mercola cites no studies showing reduced biomarkers of inflammation for people on keto diets. While it’s possible that this might occur for people who are eating the standard American diet and then switch to a keto diet, that doesn’t mean the keto diet is good for you. As I pointed out earlier, saturated fat is a direct causal agent of inflammation.

–Reduced cancer risk

Mercola cites no studies for his claim that keto diets reduce cancer risk. Meat based diets are known to increase cancer risk. Processed meat actually has the same level of confidence in carcinogenicity as cigarettes – both are class 1 carcinogens. While I suppose it’s possible to do a keto vegan diet, I somehow doubt that’s what Mercola is referring to.

-Increased muscle mass

I love the disclaimer he gives for this one. “Chronic ketosis may eventually result in muscle lossas your body is impairing the mTOR pathway, which is important for anabolic growth.” Just an FYI, vegans have set world records for strength. In fact, Roman Gladiators were also known as the “Barley Men of Rome” because of the predominately barley based diet they ate. All carbs – total power.

-Lowered insulin levels

This one irks me because it’s not the keto diet that reduces the blood glucose levels per se, it’s the weight loss it induces that lowers the blood glucose levels. If you were to take an already healthy person and put them on a keto diet, their blood glucose levels would most likely worsen. Intramyocellular lipids (fats in the muscle tissues) are at the root of type II diabetes. This is why losing body fat will improve blood glucose readings.

In thesestudies, we can see that a whole food plant based diet was able to lower blood glucose levels WITHOUTcaloric restriction.

–Increased longevity

Mercola claims that keto diets reduce IGF-1 levels and mimic the life extending properties of caloric restriction. Again, this might be true compared to people who eat the standard American diet, but not to healthy people. Animal protein is known to increase IGF-1. When we compare meat eaters to vegans and vegetarians, the vegans have the lowest levels.

Historically in the US, total caloric intake has increased, overall fat intake has increased, thereby any statement blaming carbs alone for the obesity epidemic is wrong. Fat as a percentage of calories decreased, but fat intake in terms of total calories consumed increased since the 1970s.

Looking at a graph of the percent change in consumption, we can see added fats top the list.

Common sense says fat is behind the obesity epidemic. One gram of fat contains 9 calories compared to 4.5 for carbs or protein. A person would have to eat twice as many carbs by weight as fat to get the same number of calories. Whole food carbs, such as potatoes, beans, rice, etc.. are also bound with fiber and water, which further dilutes their caloric density. Randomized control trials tell us conclusively that reductions in fat intake lead to lower body weights. This is the strongest type of evidence available.

How many fat rice eating Asians on a traditional Asian diet do you know? The lowest obesity rate nations in the world are almost exclusively rice based Asian nations.

Hopefully Lew Rockwell will eventually see Mercola for the quack that he is. Feel free to share this article or republish it as you wish. The more people who see this the better.